The Importance of Enterprise Grade File Sharing

Written by Michael Brown 1
March 6, 2015

Not all file sharing services are created equal. MSPs with business and government customers looking to protect their data must teach them about the differences in consumer services versus services built for organizations. Here's how.

File sharing and remote working have become such an integral part of the typical workplace, it would be difficult to find a managed service provider potential client that isn’t inquiring about cloud-based file sharing options. However, as we all know, not all file sharing services are created equal, and utilizing the correct type of application is crucial in successfully serving your clients.

Orange County (Orlando, Florida) recently decided to drop all use of their consumer-facing file sharing service, which they used to enable employees to work from home. A court order requiring the county to disclose all the IP addresses accessing the cloud application spurred the move. The County decided that it was far too risky to disclose IP addresses that hackers could potentially then use to tamper with county operations, including water or security at the jail or courthouse.

However, perhaps the county’s security concerns were misplaced from the start.

MSPs should emphasize the differences between enterprise-grade and consumer-facing file sharing in cloud services. Orange County, in its quest for secure solutions, should have taken a look at their existing applications and protocols for file sharing and remote working.

Your clients may be considering moving from consumer to enterprise grade sharing or you may be evaluating which application to start them on. Either way, you should be able to explain the benefits and risks of each cloud sharing option.

Consumer Grade

When employees in a corporation use external, consumer-facing cloud applications, IT has zero control of that data beyond the company’s firewalls. This means that the data could be at risk while transferring to the cloud application, while stored in the application, while accessed on the employee’s personal devices, or while transferring back to the application or company servers. That is a large amount of time and locations for sensitive data to be unprotected (according the company’s specific standards) and subject to potential threats.

Enterprise Grade

Enterprise-grade file sharing protects your clients’ sensitive data better and longer. The cloud services offer better security measures and can offer compliance guarantees. These services also place control of the data in the hands of the IT department for nearly the entire file sharing process. The transferring of files can all take place behind corporate firewalls, with the exception of only the employee’s personal devices. This creates a much more secure environment for the transfer of sensitive data. The IT departments of your clients will be able to monitor the security, compliance and storage of files in enterprise grade cloud applications designed for file storage and sharing.

Orange County is right to be cautious about IT security these days. We have all seen far too many examples of what poor security and bad protocols can end up doing to companies or individuals. Of course there are plenty of good uses for consumer grade file sharing, but it is important as an MSP to understand which situations and clients call for more enterprise level file sharing applications and to be prepared to explain that reasoning to your clients.